Paul Ryan budget plan: big spending cuts

FEDERAL BUDGET

Updated 10:32 pm, Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Rep. Paul Ryan (center) says the budget proposal follows what he and his supporters believe in.

Rep. Paul Ryan (center) says the budget proposal follows what he and his supporters believe in.

Photo: Win McNamee, Getty Images

Paul Ryan budget plan: big spending cuts

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Washington --

Four months after Republicans suffered a convincing defeat in the presidential election, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the party's vice presidential nominee, unveiled a spending-and-tax plan Tuesday that relies on the same lightning-rod proposals of his 2012 campaign to balance the federal budget in 10 years.

The Ryan plan would cut spending by $4.6 trillion through 2023, largely by rolling back President Obama's legislative accomplishments while also taking advantage of the savings they created.

While the budget would preserve Medicare cuts Republicans denounced in the 2012 campaign, it would eliminate the subsidized insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansion that make up the core of the president's health care law. Obama's Wall Street regulatory law would be repealed, and high-speed rail programs championed by Vice President Joe Biden would be rescinded.

The plan would transform Medicare into a subsidized system of private insurance plans, a proposal that Obama strongly opposed and made central to his campaign for re-election.

The budget will be formally drafted Wednesday in the House Budget Committee, of which Ryan is chairman, then brought to the House floor next week for what promises to be a contentious vote.

At a news conference Tuesday morning in the Capitol, Ryan was asked why his plan included so many elements that voters appeared to reject in November when they elected Obama over the Mitt Romney-Ryan ticket.

"So the question is," Ryan responded, "the election didn't go our way - believe me I, I know what that feels like - that means we surrender our principles? That means we stop believing in what we believe in?"

With his budget - and a Senate Democratic budget to follow Wednesday - Republicans and Democrats are setting up a clear contrast between rapid deficit reduction that relies on spending cuts only to reach balance and a slower approach that will mix tax increases and more gradual spending cuts to aim for fiscal stability if not a balanced budget.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., chairwoman of the Senate Budget Committee, said that the House Republican plan was "doubling down on the extreme budget that the American people already rejected."